Here, at last, some responsibly made material for a general audience. I do not think there is new information here, but it is a decent discussion. At the end of block 5 there is a photograph I had never seen, taken right before his death. He is incredibly skinny that day. Earlier, there is another photograph I had not seen, smiling and drinking to toast in Spain.

There is a different, 4-part series, on the same program and the parts are also in parts, for a total of 16. I don’t like this one as much but it is longer and there is actually more information in it.

Vallejo has serious women problems. He falls in love all the time but it causes him great anguish. There was that suicide attempt, over a girlfriend, before his first trip to Lima. He was a rake and a rambling man. In Lima he got his rector’s daughter pregnant and then broke up with her. Afficionados complain that he had no children, but he did have.

Arguedas for his part said he was terrified of women and this was one reason for his psychic pain. I am not sure of the exact nature of the sexual abuse he underwent but I thought the perpetrator(s) had been a man or men. I would like to know what in the name of God is going on with these characters and also where Vallejo got his mother fixation which I am convinced is neurotic.

I would also like to suggest that the wistful tone of some of Vallejo’s writing is just the Andean style. It is how you express tenderness, including tenderness for nature which is important in those mountains. If you talk to almost any Peruvian with Andean roots you will find they express themselves in this way and it does not necessarily mean they are depressed even if they do have ancestral sadness.

Secretos y Saberes

1. While writing here is an excellent exercise for my English style and for writing as such, it is bad for my style in Spanish. Therefore some posts may be in languages other than English.

2. Corybantic, rather anarchical and possibly Liangian, this blog is opposed to everything I find mean. It criticizes things you may hold dear. It resists authoritarianism and received ideas. It vaporizes Fascists.

3. This blog is a codex you have found. It speaks to one and all. But it also holds secrets and hides its face, for I who now perform the ancient text must adapt its words for modernity. I am a sculpted skull on a stela at Copán.